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Painter Renee Radell’s Renaissance in the East Village

Melissa Stern — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:41:54 +0000

Paul Bridgewater was a seminal figure in the downtown art scene in the 1980’s. From his pioneering gallery in the East Village to his grown-up gallery in SoHo, Bridgewater brought consistently fresh and edgy artists to the public view. Stepping back from the spotlight for ten years and working as a private dealer, he now makes a bold entrance into the LES scene showing the work of an 83-year-old painter. What?, you may ask. Where is the “new media,” the transgressive gender role-play, the ironic hipster eye roll at the world that feeds it? Is this painting?

Yes, luscious, rich, mature, thoughtful paintings. Renee Radell’s painting career started in 1952. Her work gained national recognition in the mid 60’s and she’s been painting ever since. The exhibition at 154 Smart Clothes (Bridgewater’s new gallery named for the former store it occupies) is a radical new direction for Radell. Known primarily for portraiture and politically conscious satire, this group of works attempts to deal head-on with some of the primary concerns of post-war painters. Color, form–the tension between them–and the battle for primacy between image and abstraction are the main topics explored. Thankfully, there is not a bit of irony in the entire gallery.

While all sensuous and lavish in their love of color, a few of these paintings stand out as particularly powerful. Eventide is one of these. Referencing landscapes there is a lovely interplay between atmospheric mark-making and the firm strong black marks that clearly show the hand of the artist. The strain between these contrasting languages of marks and color is quite effective. All of the paintings in which Radell has used these dark punctuation gestures are strong and stand out.

Not every one is a knock-out. There are a few that are too sweet in color and gentle in paint handling for my taste, but by and large this is a solid, thoughtful and substantive exhibition.  Leave it to Paul Bridgewater to mine the depths of experience and time to present us an overlooked artist whose work defies the trends. Hopefully this is a omen of a return to the artistic values and craftsmanship that have been too long out of style. Hats off to 154 Smart Clothes!

“Renee Radell–New Directions” runs through July 7 at 154 Smart Clothes, 154 Stanton Street, NY

Artist Martin Puryear Keeps Moving in Latest New York Exhibition

Armond White — Tue, 29 May 2012 19:55:56 +0000

Martin Puryear is a man on the move. In his current exhibition at McKee Gallery almost all of the pieces refer in one way or another to an act of movement. Whether literal, as in the pieces The Rest and The Load, which are on wheels, or metaphoric like the stunning piece Heaven Three Ways/ Exquisite Corpse “Heaven.” Cast in white bronze, it’s an elegant triad of gestures that moves from earth to sky in one majestic sweep.

This is Puryear’s first exhibition since his huge, traveling retrospective, which hit MoMA in 2007. It reflects both a great evolution in Puryear’s work and the continuing dedication to material, form and fabrication that makes it some of the most powerful contemporary art in America.

For Puryear, everything is in flux; everything moves. From pieces on wheels to pieces on giant rolling timbers, the entire show exudes a sense of physical potential. There are sculptural carts on wagon wheels, sculptures that are paper-thin sheets of Alaskan Cedar curving along the walls, and a huge field of willow branches that seem to blow in an invisible wind. Without the faintest hint of cliché, these all evoke a feeling of exploration, new lands and new lives. It is a show that to me expresses a great optimism. As always with Puyear’s work there is a tie to our cultural past, our history of making objects by hand. This is a critical element, I think, in what keeping Puryear’s work so consistently potent, ethereal yet accessible. Beyond its beauty there is always a connection to the hand that made it. And by extension to the viewer who imagines in him or herself the potential to be the makers of such things.

It’s a show that offers no easy interpretations, no comtempo art world irony or bratty high concept. The show quietly and powerfully draws you into Martin Puryear’s exquisite universe and leaves you feeling somehow better for the experience.

Martin Puryear: new Sculpture. McKee Gallery 745 Fifth Ave. Exhibition runs through June 29. http://mckeegallery.com/

Keep on Truckin’

City Arts — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:23:38 +0000

Jade Townsend’s “Beastly” Installation

By Melissa Stern, for CityArts

Jade Townsend’s new body of work, entitled “Leviathan,” is a challenging show to get one’s arms around.  Upon entering the Lesley Heller Workspace on lower Orchard Street, the viewer is faced with two choices: Option one, to the right is the lower half of a human mannequin with a giant red painting propped upon it. To see the stunning drawing on the wall behind it you must gingerly make your way around the obstacle. Option two is to walk through an open-ended wooden box constructed in the gallery that spits you out into the belly of the exhibition. Neither is a particularly welcoming entrance to what is an interesting, if not a wee bit overreaching show of drawings and sculpture.

The exhibit consists of a series of drop-dead gorgeous drawings. Richly executed and darkly funny, they depict a perverted circus world full of ambivalence and peril. The drawings are full of truck imagery, in itself a wonderful tweak on the circus theme. The work is hung on walls loosely striped with red paint, to simulate a circus tent. OK, this kind of works; it relates to the drawings, and I dig an off-beat installation. But then there are also the three big sculptural elements: The aforementioned mannequin, the box, which is said to represent the back of a “box” truck used for delivering art, and a giant wooden construction of the cab of a truck upended, as if the front had crashed propelling the seats high in the air. A video loop plays on what would be the windshield with a soundtrack of African pop music. The back of the “truck” has an old medical textbook on the heart wedged into it with plastic tubes streaming out of the sides. Entitled “Beast.”

Art in the belly of the beast–I get it. It’s a big concept. But you know, the drawings are so damn interesting on their own, delicate narratives meticulously worked with colored pencil, graphite and pastel. They could live perfectly well solo. One wishes the artist had kept it simple, in favor of the beauty and complexity of the drawings, and resisted forcing them into an “installation.”

“Leviathan” remains an interesting and worthy show, an exhibit worth seeing.

Jade Townsend’s “Leviathian” through May 25. Lesley Heller Workspace

54 Orchard St. http://lesleyheller.com/ (212) 410-6120

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